Apple Seeks Google’s Help in Long-Awaited Siri AI Update

Apple is reportedly nearing a $1-billion-per-year deal with Google to power its long-awaited Siri upgrade.

That deal would give Apple access to a powerful 1.2 trillion parameter artificial intelligence (AI) model from Google, Bloomberg News reported Wednesday (Nov. 5), citing sources with knowledge of the matter.

After an evaluation period, the two tech giants are now finalizing an agreement, those sources told Bloomberg. Apple, the report added, is counting on Google’s assistance to overhaul the technology powering its Siri voice assistant, aiming to roll out new features next year.

The report also notes that the Google model’s 1.2 trillion parameters, which are a measure of the AI software’s complexity, would greatly exceed the level of the models Apple has now. The Apple model has 150 billion parameters, the report added, meaning Google’s tech would greatly expand the system’s power and its ability to glean context and process complex data.

Apple has considered working with other companies to help update Siri, testing models from OpenAI and Anthropic before landing on Google, Bloomberg added. The iPhone maker is reportedly hoping to use Google’s tech as a stopgap until its own models become powerful enough. The new version of Siri is on pace to debut in the spring of 2026.

PYMNTS has contacted Apple  for comment but has not yet gotten a reply. A spokesperson for Google declined to comment.

Writing about Siri in March, PYMNTS noted that the AI assistant, revolutionary when it debuted in 2011, has since fallen behind comparable offerings from Google, Amazon and Samsung in terms of incorporating advanced AI features.

In an interview with PYMNTS earlier this year, Siri’s original co-designer Luc Julia posited that an obsession with perfection was hindering Apple’s efforts to introduce an upgraded Siri faster.

“They are falling behind because of this fear of not being perfect,” said Julia, who is now the chief science officer for French automaker Renault.

In other AI news, PYMNTS wrote Wednesday about the move by artificial intelligence companies away from the belief that bigger models were automatically better.

“That assumption is beginning to change. The next phase of AI is about efficiency, building models that are smaller, faster and cheaper to run without sacrificing performance,” the report said, adding that IBM and Anthropic are among the companies driving this trend.